Strongest and up to the moment rallying seems to have taken place on a secret social network : BlackBerry Messenger. Using BlackBerry handsets the smartphone of choice for the majority ( 37% ) of English youths, according to last week’s Ofcom study BBM permits users to send one-to-many messages to their network of contacts, who are connected by “BBM PINs”. For many youths supplied with a BlackBerry, BBM has replaced text messaging as it is free, instant and more part of a much bigger community than regular SMS. And in contrast to Twitter or Facebook, many BBM messages are untraceable by the authorities ( explaining why, largely, BBM is so favored by Emirati kids to spread unlawful talk about officialdom ). One BBM broadcast sent on Sun. , that has been shown to the Guardian by several sources, calls on “everyone from all sides of London” to vandalize shops on Oxford street. It revealed : “Everyone from all sides of London meet up at the heart of London ( central ) OXFORD CIRCUS!!, Bare SHOPS are going to get bust up so come get some ( free stuff!! ) fuck the Feds we’re going to send them back with OUR riot! :O Dead the ends and color war for the moment so if you see a brother… SALUT! If you see a fed… SHOOT!” Another sent just before the outbreak of violence in Enfield on Sun. afternoon reads : “Everyone in edmonton enfield wood green everywhere in north link up at enfield city station at four o clock sharp!”. Jenny Jones, the previous assistant mayor of London, blamed an under-resourced force for missing the tweets and the standing updates. “It’s pretty likely if they’d more resources they may have picked up on this,” she claimed.
But perhaps they were looking in the wrong place. Just as Tottenham residents in 1985 lambasted the media for scaremongering about demonstrators the Daily Express recommended some had been trained in Russia today’s rioters could be stunned to read about “Twitter-organised chaos”.
